Spotify Becomes a Music Platform — At a posh press event in Manhattan's Greenwich Village on Wednesday, freemium music subscription service Spotify revealed the “new direction” at which it has been hinting: a new API (application programming interface) that will let any developer …

Live Blog: The Spotify Special Event — Hot music startup Spotify is holding a special event in New York City this morning, where it's going to unveil what it's calling a “New Direction” for the service. Spotify hasn't given any details on what to expect, but it obviously considers …

The next stage in our redesign — Six months ago we started rolling out a new look and feel for Search, News, Maps, Translate, Gmail and a bunch of other products. Our goal was to create a beautifully simple and intuitive user experience across Google. — We're now ready for the next stage …

Introducing Path 2, the Smart Journal — Over the last year, you have told us about the ways you've been recording and sharing your lives on Path — things like summer road trips and high school graduations, a baby's first words, and hundreds of sunsets. You also used Path in ways we could have never imagined.

Whitman: HP Decision on webOS Coming Within Two Weeks — Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman just gave an interview to Le Figaro, a French newspaper, saying that a decision on what to do with HP's webOS software will come within the next two weeks. — Here's the key quote, courtesy of Google Translate:

Samsung unveils Cortex-A15 2GHz Exynos 5250 SoC — Samsung has just unveiled a new System-on-chip (SoC) for future mobile devices. It's the Exynos 5250 that boasts two Cortex-A15 chips clocked at 2GHz. The dual-core Exynos 5250 is created using a 32nm-low power HKMG process and is said to double …

Impending crisis for Microsoft: Office tablet pricing — Summary: If Microsoft is readying a version of Office for the iPad, it better be prepared for the ripple effect in its other business. — ZDNet reported yesterday that Microsoft is getting a version of Office ready for the iPad.

The Apologies of Zuckerberg: A Retrospective — At this point, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's pattern on privacy is clear. Launch new stuff that pushes the boundaries of what people consider comfortable. Apologize and assure users that they control their information, but rarely pull back entirely …

Mark Pincus on What Makes Zynga Hum: Short Attention Spans — A booming business in virtual goods adds up to huge profits for the online gaming company. — Online games company Zynga is planning to raise $1 billion by selling a small portion of its shares in an IPO that is expected to occur before the end of the year.

Steve Jobs Was Right: Google IS Turning Into Microsoft — Last spring as Larry Page was preparing to retake the helm at Google, he asked Steve Jobs for advice. — Jobs told him to focus on fewer things and do them really well. — Jobs later recounted the conversation to his biographer Walter Isaacson.

How Cisco Spinoff Agari Aims To Finally Kill Phishing — As head of security technologies at the startup Ironport in 2007, Patrick Peterson was once so obsessed with tracking a group of drug-hawking spammers that he spent day and night in front of a computer, following leads and ignoring …

Ultrabook prices may fall 5-10% in 1Q12, say makers — Acer, Asustek Computer and Toshiba are expected to lower retail prices for ultrabooks to below US$1,000 by the end of 2011, and with a US$100 marketing subsidy from Intel, prices may further drop 5-10% in first-quarter 2012, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers.

Internet sales tax fight returns to Congress — eBay is preparing to amplify its attack on a proposed law that would usher in sales taxes on Internet shopping, CNET has learned. — The online auctioneer plans to tell a congressional panel considering the legislation tomorrow that the measure …